Questions Unanswerable
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: *HLV Spoilers* (post-Consciousness Regained, pre-Some Value in Sentimentality (Perhaps)) Those long hours the second time he finds himself maintaining a bedside vigil in a week.


Back again. Returned once more. Déjà vu, but that's beside the point. What is the point, anymore? I don't know, feel like I've lost it somewhere along the way in the cloud of confusingly agonising revelations. The words are again inadequate, nothing to describe the tumult of emotions. The worry, the anger, the numbing sadness. The disappointment. Because I am disappointed, though I can't explain how. Before, the masked attempted-murderer had no human face, a shadow was all. Now, she's all too real.

I don't phone her, can't bring myself to tell her that he's pulled through surgery again. It's her fault we're in this situation to begin with, even though it's his own fault this time that we're back to it again. This is where trying to be clever has gotten him. Surely there was a simpler way to go about it.

As for her. How much of it was a lie? I can't be sure. All of it, even her feelings? Has everything she's ever told me been a lie, half-truths and non-truths strung together to create a believable life-that-never-was? Who's to say? I certainly can't, and she won't. Maybe just present me with another memory stick that she hopes I'll never look at.

Though I would certainly like to know the truth of the woman that I'm married to. Perhaps some things are better left unknown. If it's unknown, maybe it's not real. What's certainly real is the state that she's left him in, so little of his own blood left in his arteries and veins.

I was happier before I knew she was a liar, could cope with someone trying to kill my best friend, because what's new there? But it was never meant to be her. Anyone but her.

Brittle fingers twitch in my hand, pulling me back to the present and my eyes are drawn to his face. His brow is furrowed in his unconsciousness, as if he is having a nightmare, and he moans slightly before it smooths out again. None of the machines register any change and I resign myself to waiting. I seem to be doing an awful lot of that lately.

At least his heart stayed beating, this time. Though it had looked bad for him at one stage, blood pressure dropping rapidly, vitals erratic, face so pallid, even his lips were almost-white. Odds of survival decrease with each successive cardiac arrest, even if they are a week apart. And I don't know what I'd do without him anymore. Close as it was this time, that much was avoided. Every small mercy is a blessing at this stage.

At least he didn't lie to me about his whole life, though they had said he had.

Faking his death was a big enough betrayal from him.

At least he never claimed to be something he wasn't. To all intents and purposes, he had been dead for those two years, coming back with eyes haunted, unwilling to speak about the things he had done – had been done to him – while he was away. And I didn't like to press, though maybe I should have. Maybe that could have stopped the drugs. It couldn't all have been for a case.

But how can everything have come to this? To this hospital room in these late – or is it early? – hours? To him stretched in that bed, pale and unmoving for the second time in a week, having come so close to bleeding out once again? Once was enough. One death, one near-death. Not one fake death and two near-deaths. But it seems that this is a repeatable cycle with us, all these messes.

There's a bigger mess waiting for me at home, if I can ever face it again. The thought makes me feel ill, makes me cling tighter to his hand as if that is enough to strengthen his ties to life. Still so many complications possible. And it's all her fault. Or is it mine? If I hadn't married her, would any of this have happened? Or would it have come around anyway, but with less strings attached? Without a baby in the middle of it all.

If it wasn't for the child, I'd leave her now. Turn her in and let the law have its way with her. The baby changes everything, raises more obstacles to overcome, more decisions to make and none of them are worth facing right now. None of them compare to this, this waiting, this not-quite-knowing. This hoping. Because even if he is at fault for landing himself back in here, I can't bring myself to blame him. Can't bring myself to blame anybody but her, that woman masquerading as someone who never existed to begin it. Even the Woman was never as bad as that. My wife makes her look saintly.

I run my thumb over the back of his hand, skin milky translucent, veins just visible. So fragile, easily broken, like hearts are these days. But there is nothing to say now, likely won't be for a while. Words can't encapsulate all the things that I feel seeing him like this again. No blood on the pavement this time, just blood soaking into carpets and shirts, or at least there was a week ago. Blood escaping, remaining trapped, damaging delicate organs with deprivation, or pressure.

I should have seen it sooner, should have paid more attention to him, should have hauled him back to hospital immediately. Curiosity got the better of me, then anger. If he hadn't taken matters into his own hands, we'd be planning another funeral for him, likely as not. Couldn't face that again, and it would all be her fault, her with her false sympathy and concern, all as fake as her name and identity.

Eyelids flicker, long lashes brushing cheekbones, before half opening and regarding me carefully, blue in their drugged depths. I open my mouth to say something – Lord knows what – but his fingers squeeze mine weakly and those eyes slip closed, a soft sigh seeming to escape him despite the oxygen. I smile slightly and squeeze his hand back, though I know he won't remember it. Not that he has to. It's enough for him to pull through this, escape and survive what my wife of all people has put him through.

Doesn't make sleep likely though. Not on this night, not after everything. Dreams would only be nightmares anyway, and I need to stay by his side. Self-reassurance of his survival, as essential tonight as the last night, when this began, when I thought I'd lost him again. So I swallow back the tears, the bile and anger, and maintain my position. Cycle repeated, once more.


End file.
